Credera reduces time-to-hire by 4 days with Calendly

Credera, a management and technology consulting firm, was struggling to efficiently schedule interviews during a period of hyper-growth, including recruiting 150 consultants and 50 interns in just 8 weeks. With thousands of interviews to coordinate across multiple universities, their recruiting team was bogged down by manual scheduling and frequent errors. By implementing Calendly, Credera reduced their time-to-hire by 4 days, saving 446+ hours and improving the candidate experience.

Challenges

Scheduling interviews with thousands of candidates

Credera, a global consulting firm, was hiring hundreds of new employees each year during a season of hyper-growth, including many recent graduates and interns. During one campus recruiting season, the company set high hiring targets, aiming to recruit 150 entry-level consultants and 50 interns in just eight weeks. 

To achieve these numbers, two campus recruiters faced the monumental task of organizing thousands of interviews at 10 major universities across the United States.

Their responsibilities included connecting students and organizing quick chats and interviews with Credera consultants. “It was an insane volume of people to manage,” says one Credera recruiter. 

Despite the high targets, the recruiting team committed to giving every student a valuable and efficient experience. “We believe in creating exceptional recruiting experiences, and part of that means responding to every single student,” says one team member. The Credera recruiting team used a spreadsheet to pair students with interviewers and track interactions. However, the team quickly realized this method led to errors and extended working hours.  

All interviews were organized over email, which included a lot of back-and-forth with candidates. The process took hours, especially if there was a scheduling conflict or incorrect data in the spreadsheet. “The scheduling process alone took about two hours per candidate,” says a recruiter. “We were working long hours and sometimes doubled up on work or made mistakes.” 

“We were so focused on scheduling that we didn’t get to interact with candidates as much as we’d like.”

The team looked for a solution to eliminate manual scheduling and free up time to spend with candidates, brief interviewers, and further build Credera’s employee value proposition. After evaluating various scheduling tools, Credera chose Calendly.

Solution

Giving recruiters their time back

Before rolling Calendly out to the entire team, Credera integrated Calendly with existing tools like Greenhouse and Microsoft Teams and set up custom Email Workflows to automate tasks and reduce manual work. 

Credera's recruiting team uses Calendly to automate interview scheduling and create a better candidate experience. Now, Calendly is used by the entire campus recruiting team and over 350 Credera consultants. The benefits were immediate.

Organizing high-volume interviews with Round Robin scheduling Credera candidates apply for roles in three main practices: management, technology, and experience design. Recruiters use Calendly team scheduling to organize interviewers into Calendly events with a customized booking page for candidates to leverage. 

Members in a Calendly event can set their available times, and/or integrate it with their calendar, which then displays available times to those with the booking link.

Recruiters then use the Round Robin feature to match candidates with available interviewers in the right field. No complicated spreadsheets are needed as candidates and interviewers are automatically paired. This enables recruiters to schedule thousands of interviews within tight time frames. 

Automating communication with Workflows Credera recruiters use Calendly Workflows to send a sequence of automated email and text reminders to both candidates and interviewers. 

“We set up our communication so we are contacting candidates two days, 24 hours, and one hour before their interview,” says a recruiter.

With Workflows, the Credera team has created a more professional experience for candidates and interviewers and drastically reduced no-shows.

Along with recruiters, consultants who help interview and mentor new hires also use Calendly for easier scheduling. “We organize new hires into small mentorship groups, each led by a consultant,” says a recruiter. “We encourage those consultants to schedule those meetings using Calendly.”   

Consultants now use Calendly to schedule informal coffee chats with students and meetings with mentorship groups. This saves time and makes it easier for recruiters to keep track of consultant activity outside of formal interviews. 

Consultants also use Calendly to book internal and external meetings as part of their everyday work, significantly reducing back-and-forth scheduling emails. 

“Calendly made scheduling meetings extremely easy. It eliminated four different touchpoints with candidates,” says the Credera Recruiting Team.

Results

Reducing hiring time by four days

Credera shortened their recruiting cycle from 10 days to six days with Calendly. Each recruiter saves one to two hours per day with Calendly, totaling up to 80 hours saved over a busy recruiting season.

“Thanks to time freed up by Calendly, we can have a face-to-face interaction with almost every candidate who applies,” says a recruiter. The team also enjoys a better work-life balance during the hectic recruiting season.

Recruiters use their time savings to improve the hiring experience and engage with top candidates. “Candidates now have a coffee chat with someone in the talent acquisition team or a consultant,” says a recruiter.

Best of all, faster processes let the Credera team build meaningful relationships and improve the candidate experience — without adding to recruiters’ workloads. “Calendly allows our team to use their time more effectively, creating a higher impact,” says the Credera Recruiting Team.